Oh to live in a generation where technology and humans meet; is indeed the revolution humans need.
“The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.” – Bill Gates
What is Data Science?
Data science is the combination of tools, algorithms and machine learning components. It plays the role of extracting clean information from raw data for the planning of actionable insights.
Data Science continues to bring an immense number of benefits in business, research, even our daily lives. The things you search for in Google search bar, the posts you like on your Instagram, including your health data from a fitness tracker app you downloaded in your phone, all of them are important to data scientists depending on their project. The data scientists will look through millions of data and find the hidden pattern or connection in order to come up with breakthrough insights that will contribute to our convenience, especially in business. From there, analysts and business people will be generating the insights to create a tangible business value.
Data science mainly has a five-stage life cycle that consists of:
- Capture: Data acquisition, data entry, signal reception, data extraction
- Maintain: Data warehousing, data cleansing, data staging, data processing, data architecture
- Process: Data mining, clustering/classification, data modeling, data summarization
- Communicate: Data reporting, data visualization, business intelligence, decision making
- Analyze: Exploratory/confirmatory, predictive analysis, regression, text mining, qualitative analysis
Source: UC Berkeley
“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.” – Tim Berners-Lee
Why study Data Science?
- High market demand with a shortage of supply
Being an underrated and infamous degree program, there are less number of data science graduates considering we are living in the 21st century. Adding up the computer, mathematics, and programming skills, a lot of students tend to see data science as one of the difficult programs to enroll in. Hence, despite the increase in the number of demand for data scientists, the number of data science graduates remains limited.
- Undying Program
Living in the era of technology where everything revolves around data makes data science to be more and more relevant every day. Every business lives on insight, and every insight comes from a data scientist. For every business that opens up today or opens soon, it will result in increasing demand for data scientists. It’s a never-ending cycle.
- High-paying jobs
Considering the strong impact data science has on the working industry, and the limited number of capable graduates, the data science jobs are listed as one of the high-paying jobs that will continuously be relevant in the majority of the industry.
What are the Career Opportunities?
Surely most of the students worry about the job opportunity because that is the next destination after graduating. Fret not, although Data Science is considered as an underrated program in university, in the working industry; employers hunt for their graduates. Here are some of the careers students can pursue:
- Data Scientist – gather, process, and derive valuable insights from the data
- Machine learning engineer – leverage big data tools and programming frameworks
- Data Architect – visualize, design, and prepare data
- Data engineer – assist the data architects to build the working framework for data search and retrieval
- Business intelligence developer – create tables, write reports on their findings and simplify them in an understandable way to human brains
What are the Key Skills to study Data Science?
Data Science graduates are known mostly for their strong Mathematics and computer skills. A set of skills that is needed almost everywhere in this era. In order to be able to pull off a Data Science program, these skills are important to help you through the journey:
- Business/Domain
- Mathematics (includes statistics and probability)
- Computer science (software/data architecture and engineering)
- Communication (both written and verbal)
What are the General Entry Requirements to study Data Science in Malaysia?
Since the Data Science program revolves around Mathematics, the entry requirements for the majority of the universities in Malaysia include the subject Mathematics as a compulsory credit
Academic Requirements
STPM | Minimum CGPA of 2.00 including a credit in Mathematics and Science |
Foundation/Pre-University/Matriculation | Minimum CGPA of 2.00 including a credit in Mathematics/Additional Mathematics |
A-Levels | Minimum 2 passes including a credit in Mathematics and Science |
UEC | Pass with 5Bs including Advanced Mathematics |
International Baccalaureate (IB) | Minimum 24 points |
Diploma | Related diplomas with a minimum CGPA of 2.50 |
English requirements
IELTS | Minimum 6.0 (no individual band below 6.0) |
TOEFL | Minimum 35 (Internet Based Test) |
MUET | Minimum Band 4 |
*The requirements may vary among universities, for inquiries on other entry requirements, contact Excel Education.
What are the Top 5 Private Universities to study Data Science in Malaysia?
Here we have listed down the Top 5 private universities in Malaysia for you to choose from;
1. Taylor's University
“Upon completion of this specialisation, students should be able to upload and clean real-world data, make reliable statistical inferences from the cleaned data, use Machine Learning and statistical tools to learn models for data and visualise complex data.“
Program Name | Bachelor of Computer Science (Data Science) (Hons) |
Program Duration | 3 years |
Intakes | March, August |
Indicative Annual Fee 2020 | Local students: RM97,500 International students: RM121,300 |
2. Asia Pacific University
“The programme is not merely analytics-oriented, but develops the ability to use analytics to drive key success metrics related to yield management and revenue generation in practically any business domain.”
Program Name | Bachelor of Computer Science (Data Analytics) (Hons) |
Program Duration | 3 years |
Intakes | September, November |
Indicative Annual Fee 2020 | Local students: RM87,000 International students: RM88,200 |
3. Monash University
“We have the greatest collection of expertise in the theory and practice of data analytics of any university in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Program Name | Bachelor of Computer Science in Data Science |
Program Duration | 3 years |
Intakes | February, July, October |
Indicative Annual Fee 2020 | Local students: RM40,820 International students: RM46,640 |
4. Swinburne University
“We believe a modern approach to the analysis, design and implementation of large-scale systems is essential for a career in software development.”
Program Name | Bachelor of Computer Science (Data Science) (Hons) |
Program Duration | 3 years |
Intakes | March, September |
Indicative Annual Fee 2020 | Local students: RM24,000 International students: RM30,680 |
5. UOW Malaysia KDU
“They will emerge as highly sought-after experts with interdisciplinary computer science knowledge and skills; often commanding high salaries in this field.”
Program Name | Bachelor of Computer Science (Data Science) (Hons) |
Program Duration | 3 years |
Intakes | January, June, September |
Indicative Annual Fee 2020 | Local students: RM72,285 International students: RM85,985 |
Contact us to find out more!
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Heather
I seek peace and knowledge in discovering myself.